


The Wooing

by itstonedme



Series: Beguilement Verse [5]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:06:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern day AU set in Amsterdam and London.  This episode directly follows the events in The Opening, in which Orlando became reacquainted with Elijah, a high-end escort.   Part 5 in the Beguilement universe.  Originally posted on LJ <a href="http://itstonedme.livejournal.com/29761.html#cutid1">here</a> with reader comments.  Banner by Stormatdusk.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: A work of fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wooing

Orlando has just climbed out of the Underground at Sloane Square when his cell phone goes off.

"'allo," he breezes as he claps it to his ear. "Sorry!" he mouths immediately to a fellow passing the other way who he's clipped with his gym bag. He juggles the duffel to his other shoulder, then brings the phone back to his ear. "Say again? I didn't catch what you said."

"That's because I didn't say anything."

Orlando slows his steps and cups his hand to block his other ear. "Who's this?" he asks.

"Damn, and I thought I had you at 'hello.'"

Orlando has stopped now. He's smiling and nodding his head as if Elijah were standing right in front of him.

"So. Small talk or cut to the chase?" Elijah asks.

"Anything," Orlando laughs. "It's just good to hear your voice."

"When can we get together?"

Orlando's heart jams. When they had last seen each other -- by the calendar, only a short two weeks ago, but calendars don't measure doubts -- Elijah had set the terms of who would contact whom. It only made sense that it should be left with Elijah because otherwise, it might be too open to misinterpretation. 

A misinterpretation, say, that could involve the exchange of money.

"Would this weekend be too soon?" Orlando suggests hesitantly. He winces at his own eagerness.

"Actually....," Elijah replies.

Orlando drops his head, lips already tightening in disappointment. 

"...no." 

Orlando can hear the smile in Elijah's voice. "Where?" he's asked.

Orlando has begun to walk in short circles, his thoughts a mad scramble as he attempts to regroup. He's chilled suddenly and thinks it's perhaps because the sun has now set, perhaps due to a dampness in the air that he's not dressed for. 

Who is he fooling?

"Tell you what," he finally says. "Let me pick you up. Saturday, midmorning. I'll call you a little later with the time, that good?"

"You're coming here to take me on a date?" Elijah laughs at the absurd sweetness of the proposal.

At 9 o'clock on a Chelsea evening near tidy tree-lined roads not far from where he lives -- cabs and cars motoring by and no one paying him the slightest mind -- Orlando stops and blushes. "Well, I...."

"Sshhh," Elijah says. "It's nice to be wooed."

*

Friday rolls around, and Elijah is enjoying an easy day, brunching with Dom who is peppering him good-naturedly with all sorts of gibes about the mysterious silence Elijah has blanketed over the coming weekend. 

"It's that bloke, iznit," Dom says while he slides a calamari over his index finger. 

"For fuck's sake, Dom, you're supposed to attract clients, not scare them off. Quit playing with your food."

"Ralph. You've sniffed him out, haven't you." He pops the squid into his mouth and leans forward on the quiet. "And who are we kidding? My arse belongs to Ian this season, or haven't you noticed?"

Elijah exhales a laugh. "Yes, you two have become a regular Frick and Frack it seems."

"Jealous?" Doms smiles saucily, sitting back to pick at the plate they're sharing. "Afraid the line of credit on your wardrobe's about to dry up?" 

"Of you and Ian? Never," Elijah smiles softly. 

"That's my boy. All for one and one for all. Now back to Ralph. Oh, oh, it's Or-LAN-do, ain't it." His brows arch. "How swish."

"No," Elijah says, folding his napkin. "Not Orlando." So much for all for one. "But that's everything I can say about it for the time being."

"Oo-la-la, getting all Mata Hari on me," Dom winks.

What Dom won't know is what Elijah doesn't know, and that is where this weekend is headed. 

*

Elijah visits the spa in the afternoon and spends the next six hours there, getting rolled and oiled, stripped, shaved, trimmed and polished to a perfect shine. When he comes home, he sets his clothes for the morning, rolls a joint and sits on the balcony, reading a novel until it becomes too dark to see.

Saturday morning, he is up by 7:30 and out to a few shops, picking up a coffee and some fruit for breakfast before returning to change. It's still warm enough in the waning days of summer to wear the casual suit he bought in Lugano with Ian; he can still get away without socks in his loafers. 

The lobby phone rings exactly at 10am. Orlando is nothing if not punctual, Elijah reflects with amusement. 

He's been ready himself for half an hour.

He picks up the handset. "I'm impressed," he says. 

"Mr. Wood?" A man's voice.

"That's right." Elijah frowns.

"Your car is here."

Elijah's brows knit a little closer. "Can you tell me who ordered the car?"

"Mr. Bloom, sir."

"And can you tell me where you're taking me?"

"Schiphol, sir."

Elijah begins to smile. "I'll need about ten minutes. Do we have time?"

"Certainly, sir."

Elijah disconnects and goes into the bedroom, removing his carry-on and garment bag from the closet, his passport from the dresser. 

*

"Your ticket, sir." The driver passes a ticket wallet to the back seat once they have stopped at the Departures dropoff. It's for a one-way flight.

 

"Your newspaper, Mr. Wood," the steward smiles, trading it for Elijah's garment bag which is hung in the business class wardrobe.

 

"Your towel, sir. Can I offer you a beverage or light snack?"

*

Orlando is there to meet him when he clears the arrivals lounge ninety minutes after lift-off. 

If Elijah is casual euro-chic, then Orlando is decidedly casual: loose leather jacket, trim and well-worn boots, faded black jeans; one arm of his sunglasses clings to the neck of his grey knit tee. He leans in and kisses Elijah on the cheek, smiling, then takes the garment bag and guides him towards the exit. There is nothing about his manner to betray the pounding heart and curling gut at seeing Elijah once again. 

"Uneventful flight?" he asks. They both don their sunglasses as they emerge into the sunshine. 

"After an eventful adjustment, yes."

"Oh? You mean the car?" Orlando's arm slips easily and protectively to Elijah's shoulder as he steers him across the roadway to the parking garage.

"Yes," Elijah laughs. "The car." 

"Well, the plans I have made only really work with you being here, not me there, you know?" 

"No," Elijah grins. "But I suspect I will."

*

They spend the early afternoon touring the areas where Orlando works and several building sites he has completed, since Orlando considers it only reciprocity now that Elijah has been so kind as to have shown him _his_ personal work environment. Elijah is fascinated by the engineering and design intricacies that Orlando draws to his attention, which he would otherwise not have noticed, indeed, not even have known existed in architecture. But even more, he is fascinated by Orlando's passion and discernment, so much so that he finds himself watching Orlando as much as the cantilevered trusses and clerestories and friezes being described for him.

"What?" Orlando laughs when he glances over, a bemused grin cast his way.

"I just find it refreshing, being with someone so joyfully absorbed by their work." He would like to say that he also finds it sexy as fuck, but it's still early in the visit and he needs to pick his moments. 

Orlando blushes, which Elijah had hoped he would do, and laughs self-consciously. "I do go on," he chuckles. "Am I boring you?"

"No," Elijah smiles, looking back out the window. "I don't think that's possible." 

*

They lunch late near Hampton Court on a patio overlooking the river. Elijah hasn't asked Orlando where his flat might be, if it even is a flat, if it even is in town, and Orlando hasn't offered to take him there. Perhaps later, perhaps not. He has entered the weekend being philosophical about such things.

They don't discuss how long he will stay, if it's just for the day, for the weekend, for longer. Instead, they discuss safe topics: theatre and music and books, food and politics and the global situation, what they like, what they don't. They do not discuss people they know in common, namely Ian or Dom; they certainly don't volunteer any names of people they might both know because implicit in that information would be the question of _How do you know him?_ What they are building, by way of a mutually tacit understanding, is another world, one in which the albatross of Elijah's livelihood does not exist, that they are just two people learning more about each other, two people who find each other attractive. In an addictive kind of way.

Elijah is self-conditioned to respond to cues -- a wetting of lips, a certain downcast glance, a brush of body. But Orlando is not sending out any of these signals, at least not so far. Not a hand lingering close to his on the table, nor a sweep of eyes that rests momentarily on his mouth, nothing sexual apart from the natural heat he gives off just by virtue of being Orlando. So Elijah responds in kind and waits. 

They continue to drive west after lunch until they come to more open country: manicured hedgerows and cottaged towns and open fields. It is into one of these fields that they follow a beaten-down track, rounding a copse of trees to where a small flatbedded truck and van are parked.

"You're kidding," Elijah says.

Orlando stops the car, laughing, and they both get out. "Have you done this before?" he asks.

"No." 

"You will love it," Orlando smiles, thrilled to be giving something new to Elijah. 

A ground crew is presently inflating the envelope of a magnificently patterned hot air balloon, its droplines anchoring an intricately woven wicker and wood gondola. Cold air is already being piped into the envelope as it fills on the ground; once it has been completely inflated to tower eight storeys above the basket, the pilot will start the burners to drive heat up into it. But for now, he is checking valves and gas feeds and wind.

"We sometimes use this company for client tours," Orlando explains as they approach the balloon. He greets several of the crew members, passing his car keys to one, and introduces Elijah to John, the man who will guide the balloon. Elijah has a dozen questions for Orlando, every one of which peels the layers of maturity and fabrication away and reminds Orlando delightedly of a young boy before his first pony ride.

"Will I be warm enough up there?" Elijah asks, eyes large. "I have a change in my carry-on." 

"You'll be fine," Orlando assures him, and he wraps him in his arms, to Elijah's rather pleasant surprise, drawing him into the warm opening of the leather jacket and kissing the top of his head. "Contrary to what most people think, it can be warmer up there than on the ground because we sail _with_ the wind. Sometimes moving vertically can be a little drafty, but we'll be fine. We can always snuggle if you get cold."

Elijah hopes he freezes his balls off. 

*

They board not long after and soon are drifting above the verdant countryside. For the next half hour, they pass over towns and highways and farmland, and Orlando explains a little of the history of the region, just general chatter, all of it fascinating to Elijah because it's fascinating to Orlando. Orlando is bracketing him as they look at the horizon, his arms gripping the basket's rail either side of Elijah except when he points to some distant landmark, and the heat of his body warms Elijah's back, his breath warming his cheek. 

Elijah hasn't felt this kind of infatuation since he was in his early teens, before his cock got into the mix and things went sideways. Back then, the proximity of another person could dry his mouth and flutter his stomach and drive him to the sanctuary of his room and his notebooks to scribble all kinds of secret longings. Right at this moment, it's as if he is another person, free of the jaded, practiced refinement he maintains for the innumerable encounters that end up in thrusting grunts or utter boredom or hot, meaningless releases. He turns his face towards Orlando's voice ever so slightly so that it seems that only the fine hair on their cheeks brush, and he wonders if Orlando feels that way too.

He knows that if he wanted, he could direct all his charms on Orlando like a beacon, move things along more quickly. But he refuses to do this; when he made the decision to take a cab to the Hotel de L'Europe two weeks ago, he knew that if something were to develop between the two of them, it would be on even ground. And truth be told, he knew long before that night. 

Besides, he brings a lot more baggage to this weekend than Orlando does. It's only fair that Orlando set the pace. 

Because if it were up to him, they would have been making out back in the airport parking garage.

*

"What's happening?" Elijah's voice has taken on more than a measure of concern. "Jesus, Orlando, are we going to crash?"

They're an hour, more or less, into their flight, and the balloon has begun to lose altitude as they approach the banks of a winding river. The tree tops are perhaps fifty feet below them, and the burners have been quiet for several minutes.

"It's all right," John chuckles; there are no secrets among three people in the drifting silence of a hot air balloon. "I'm taking us down for what we call a 'splash and dash.' It'll look like we're going in, but I can control the exact altitude of the balloon. Just enjoy it."

The balloon continues to descend until Elijah can look straight out at the tops of the trees, and still they drop, ever so slowly, until they are hovering less than three feet above the water, then two, then one.

"Look over," Orlando murmurs in his ear.

Elijah leans forward and shakily laughs at his reflection in the still waters, Orlando's mirrored right beside it, the two of them floating beneath a fathomless blue ceiling and cottonball clouds. The bottom of the gondola kisses the surface and they begin to drift with the current. 

"This is unbelievable," Elijah says. Orlando is everywhere, in the water, at his back, surrounding him. He utters a contented, fractured laugh. 

Orlando runs a hand over the back of Elijah's head and lets it come to rest on his shoulder. It is all he can do not to pull this delightful, beautiful creature into a kiss. "Didn't I say you'd love this?"

*

All in all, they are in the air for close to two hours before approaching the grounds of a large estate situated on acres of forest and precisely sectioned farmland. "This is an old property that we worked on," Orlando points out, "doing structural support and refurbishing the interior. The main building is a hotel, and look, we'll be putting down over there, on one of the front lawns." He points to where the chase team is already waiting for them. "We'll be spending the night here," he adds more quietly. 

After they check in and are shown to their room -- a voluptous affair with an en suite fit for a legion -- they change for dinner, which they enjoy on a patio overlooking the gardens as the sun sets behinds a stand of poplars. They finish a carmenère with their appetizers and a brunello with the main, and are wine-warmed as the air begins to cool around them. Their conversation has begun to fade into lazy glances that cannot disguise the appetites they really want to satisfy by the time Orlando waves off dessert and signs for the meal. 

"Let's go in where it's a little warmer," he suggests.

* 

They decide it's a little warmer in the deep stone bathtub in their suite. 

Despite the passage of nearly twenty-four months, of a hundred hollow and solitary orgasms and the consuming elixir of countless recalled moments, there is no awkward shyness as they undress, nor any impulse to grope and admire. It is completely comfortable and practical: pouring more wine, hanging their clothes, running the water, adding the bath milk. Each of them climbs into the tub, groaning as heat meets unprepared skin, finding their comfort spots against the polished rock surface surrounding them. 

"I'm liking our date," Elijah says after a fashion. They are sprawled end-to-end inside the smooth oval, legs bent and overlapping each other, wine glasses in hand. A single candle on the counter dimly illuminates the room. 

He idly massages Orlando's leg with the suds-slippery sole of one foot, toes creeping over the crease between thigh and pelvis, curling against the wing of a hipbone. 

Orlando takes a sip. "Yeah? What are you liking about it?" 

Elijah would like to say that it's the anticipation. But it's more than that. He hadn't known how badly he has needed to be free of Amsterdam, of the carefully contrived life he has built for himself there until he landed onto the tarmac of this day and shed the skin of what he has become. He would like to say that this day with Orlando has allowed him to be so totally off the meter that even the thought of returning home threatens to tear his spirit. 

He would like to say that, but he doesn't. So for the moment, he says, "All of it."

"Humor me," Orlando smiles.

"How it started was unexpected." 

"I thought you might enjoy that."

"Learning about what you do, how well you do it, how much you love it."

"I do love it. I lose myself there."

"This afternoon was pretty special. And being here, being with you. There. Are you sufficiently humored?" 

Orlando is. He's been waiting (hoping, praying) to hear this admission by Elijah that his companionship is something outside of that other world, that it is enjoyed precisely because of that. He wonders if he's being foolish to see it for more than it is. He's contented enough to think not.

They stare quietly at each other, the music from the bedroom drifting through the doorway, no words spoken, just smiles. Finally Orlando crooks his head and says, "Red rover."

Elijah sits up, reaching over the edge of the tub to set his wine glass on the tile floor. A smirk curls one side of his mouth, head angled down but eyes feverishly bright on Orlando, and tucking his knees up, he slides across the gap, settling chest to chest, head tipped back. God, how he's waited for this moment.

"Much better," Orlando murmurs and eases Elijah further up, a hand wrapping around his waist. Their kiss, when it comes, is soft and wet and exploratory. As it breaks, Elijah whispers, "I've been wanting you to kiss me all day."

Orlando brushes his lips across the strands of damp curls clinging to Elijah's forehead. "Good things come..." he hums.

Elijah angles up, searching for lips. "I like it," he says between kisses, "when you say dirty things." 

Orlando slides his hand from Elijah's waist along the smooth, sudsy curve of his ass, his middle finger idling slowly along the crease, over the nub of his hole and past, fingers splayed on either side, then back, then down again. Elijah's eyelids narrow. "Ohhhh," he whispers. "I like it even more when you _do_ dirty things." 

Orlando reaches over the tub to deposit his wine glass, then presses Elijah's bottom down between the spread of his legs into his groin and thrusts up gently, holding him there. The slip of their cocks against each other is divine. "Oh God," Elijah gasps, his eyes closing.

Their mouths come together once more, more heatedly this time, probing, smearing, Orlando pressing and releasing Elijah's back, the pressure teasing, then fleeing. Elijah's cock is swelling against his pelvis.

"You're not hard," Elijah says, a little puzzled. 

"No rush, no worries," Orlando smiles, lips sliding along Elijah's cheek to his temple. He relaxes his hold on Elijah. "Float up," he whispers.

Elijah's ass rises, and Orlando's other hand strokes down his side, beneath the water's surface and along a hipbone until it finds Elijah's cock bobbing against his tummy. His hand closes around it, and Elijah arches within Orlando's embrace, his breath catching. 

"Have you been waiting all day for me to touch you as well?" Orlando asks, his lips tipping Elijah's forehead up. 

"I've been waiting since the moment I last saw you." Whatever that thought inspires causes Elijah to buck into Orlando's fist.

"Here, turn a little."

Elijah moves to his side, his arm sliding behind Orlando's back, and he burrows into the crook beneath Orlando's jaw, a hand fingerpainting sudsy peaks on the smooth chest below his chin. "I want to touch you," he says.

"Not yet." 

Elijah is rapidly filling his hand, the silky glide of the salt-softened water driving his cock smoothly along Orlando's palm and fingers. Orlando raises a leg behind Elijah so that he can rock him into it. "How's that?" he asks.

"Nice," Elijah sighs. It has been too long since he's been taken care of like this. Despite the relief sex he and Dom have going, they basically fuck for the pleasure of knowing no one's paying; basically, they just fuck, and their intimacy is more good mates than lovers. This, though, is erotic and intimate, has been from the first intimation in his bed two years before when he brought Orlando home. He feels like he's losing himself to it, and in it, wanting to just let it all go.

They keep this going for a bit, Elijah watching the muscles of Orlando's forearm flex as they work him, kissed by the candlelight. Soon, however, the blood starts to pool in his pelvis, a sparkling heat that ratchets his nerve endings to a level that means urgency. "Your mouth," he pleads a little desperately, angling his head back, and Orlando turns into him, lips and tongue spreading and invading, and Elijah begins to moan. He's driving into Orlando's hand now, his heel trying to find a surface in this maddeningly curved pool so that he can capture that moment, the one where he can fall away completely.

"Don't force it," Orlando says. "Just let it happen."

Elijah nearly sobs back his frustration but he settles, letting the tension dispel and Orlando is right; it is building so much bigger now that it must come to him, so deliciously heavy. He begins to sink into the focus of his cock and Orlando's hand and the sweet pressure found there.

Orlando eases away from their kiss. "Do not come in my tub," he teases, flirtatiously pulling long and slow.

Elijah keens, his eyes creeping open, breath panting.

Orlando leans in and licks across his cheek, and Elijah's lashes sweep down and catch against his lip. 

"Well, then, if you must," Orlando says.

A small, furtive laugh gusts from Elijah, his eyes captured by Orlando's. But his chin has come up and his neck and back are beginning to arch, and he lets his head and eyes roll back because he's helpless to stop it otherwise. Orlando closes his mouth over the vein pulsing in Elijah's neck so that through his hand and lips, he can feel Elijah pumping when he spends himself, small hitching noises escaping up his throat. The surface of the water ripples as he twitches within Orlando's arms, and Orlando pulls him closer.

They lie quietly for a time, within soft caresses and the flickering light, and Orlando considers how much he adores Elijah. And how he knows Elijah will break his heart. 

Even then, he doesn't care. _Cost/worth,_ he thinks, ever the corporate player.

*

"How about we towel off?" Orlando suggests when the water begins to cool. 

He eases Elijah up, his hands trailing over his hips and legs, making sure he's steady as he steps out of the tub. Elijah passes him a towel as he climbs out, then turns on the heat lamp, its timer humming away. He leans in to kiss Orlando, who runs his towel over Elijah's chest, then drapes it around him to pull him close. Arms wrap around each other as they kiss.

"Here." Orlando has unhooked a bathrobe from the wall peg. "I'll follow you in a minute."

*

By the time Orlando joins him in the bedroom, Elijah has shed his bathrobe on the turned-down duvet and is by the closet, a full length wall mirror in the nearby corner catching his reflection. His skin is buffed ivory in the recessed light, and Orlando can't help but pause at the twin images: the compact economy of him, the lean lines, tight muscles, manicured patch from which his cock descends. He finds Elijah's sex admirable given his smallish stature, although Orlando is reluctant to acknowledge how it must earn kind regard by the paying many who get to enjoy its display. 

Their eyes meet in the mirror, and Elijah stops, staring back. 

Orlando glances at the bedside table where a small cut-glass jar sits, lid removed. 

_Ah, yes._

He tips his chin towards an armless tapestry chair. "Move that beside the mirror and place one foot on the seat," he says quietly.

No further words are spoken, and when the chair has been moved and his foot placed, Elijah looks back through the mirror at Orlando, darkly. 

Orlando slips behind him, shedding his robe with the briefest of shrugs, letting it drop to the floor at his heels. His hands come up to rest on Elijah's shoulders, and he leans forward, eyes still fixed on Elijah's in the mirror until the moment when his lips brush the smooth curve of his neck. 

Elijah trembles and draws in a breath. 

Hands glide over the crests of Elijah's shoulders, along his arms until they sweep beneath his elbows and inch across his stomach. "I was thinking," Orlando husks, "of all the ways you make me want to crawl under your skin." His palms flatten and fingers spread, one tracking the other as they dust upwards along Elijah's chest. They watch each other in the mirror, and Elijah's chin comes up, anticipating every ghost of sensation. "How you taste, your smell, the way you feel beneath my hands." His palms cross one another and the tips of each ring finger find peaked nipples. 

Elijah fights the urge not to arch into the flick of teasing fingers. A whimper gusts past his lips.

"That's it, I need to hear how you want me."

Elijah's breath catches all the way out. 

Oh, he _wants_ all right.

Hands move again, sliding back over the plane of Elijah's tummy, each palm cradling the crests of hipbones, gently pulling back. Elijah can feel the fullness of Orlando's cock as it lifts against the opened crease of his ass, still far from erect but promising. 

Orlando's hand creeps further, along the trimmed pubic hair until it arrives to softly cup Elijah's balls. "So perfectly formed," Orlando murmurs again, a thumb stroking along the loose smoothness of Elijah's scrotum, rolling and weighing the fullness he finds, and he wonders if the general tidying up was perhaps for him. He would like to think it was.

Elijah's cock twitches above caressing fingers. It's too much for him, being handled so tenderly, and his arms reach up to curl around Orlando's neck and shoulder. "You drive me crazy," he moans, "do you know that? You've gotten into my head and won't leave." He's as surprised by his sudden candor as he suspects Orlando is.

Lips brush along the side of Elijah's neck and shoulder. "I know," Orlando says. "It's happening to me too." He tastes the water-warmed salty softness of Elijah's skin, first the left shoulder, then across the delicate spinal notches to the right shoulder. 

Skin crawls where it's touched, and Elijah's eyes narrow while he watches Orlando's face set like the sun behind his back, leaving only the caress of damp hair on his shoulder blades, of lips and tongue shedding rays along his ribs and spine. Orlando kneels on the bathrobe, his hands sliding to Elijah's hips, and bereft of something to hold onto, Elijah reaches back and grips the wrists steadying him. 

Orlando finds the invitation to tongue over the downy small of Elijah's back and into his crease is too tempting not to accept. He dips down, pressing his face along the creamy orb of Elijah's ass, hot breath washing over his hole, and leans in, swiping beside it, below it, up the other side.

"Jesus Christ," Elijah whines high in his throat, his head dropping, a hand squeezing. "Come on, Orli, just do it." 

Orlando gusts an obliging laugh against Elijah's skin, at the pet name Elijah's never used and the needy plea wrapped around it. 

When his tongue finally probes and pierces, Elijah groans and arches, his foot fighting to keep its balance, and he folds down over his raised knee. Orlando pulls him closer into his face.

It's nicely dirty, this bit of anal play, a special treat Orlando supposes Elijah mustn't get very often. He wets him thoroughly, using his chin to indicate that he's looking for a better spread, which Elijah takes to heart. It's a much better angle, giving more room for Orlando to lap aft of his balls. 

Elijah's cock has begun to lift and swell, and when Orlando reaches through his legs and grips it, stroking up, his breathing becomes heavy and greedy.

"Stay right there," Orlando says, leaning back. "With your ass out, just like...that." 

He retrieves the glass jar from the bedside table and sets it beside Elijah's foot on the chair. "It was very thoughtful of you to remember to bring this," he says quietly, leaning down to kiss and stroke Elijah's back while he dips three fingers into the silky cream. He greases Elijah from balls to anus, one finger probing inside, and when Elijah hisses, he presses a hand on his back to keep him down. "Don't move," he breathes, and his finger works into Elijah a little deeper, twisting and pressing, then retreating, slathering back to his balls before returning and probing back in, this time with a second finger, stretching and circling, so slippery soft.

"Fuck, Orlando, come _on_ ," Elijah cries. 

"Soon," Orlando says quietly, a third finger sliding in. "Just a little longer."

Elijah grinds out a wordless groan and thinks he might explode right out of his skin.

Coating himself, Orlando lines up. "Here we go," he says. 

He presses in, pushing past the initial resistance into the slickness and heat, and wrapping an arm around Elijah, pulls him flush to his groin. 

"Thank Christ," Elijah sobs. 

Orlando draws Elijah upright, back against his chest, and Elijah winces as he adjusts to the angle. His cock is full now, bobbing out from his body, and when Orlando fists a greasy hand around it, he huffs out a cry, his fingers digging white notches into Orlando's forearms. Their eyes meet in the mirror.

"This is a good look for you, Elijah," Orlando whispers, their eyes still locked in the mirror. "Hungry, hard. It sets off the sparkling blue of your eyes."

Elijah rolls his head onto Orlando's shoulder, staring up at him crookedly. "Those are tears, you bastard, because you're taking so long to fuck me." 

"Greedy too. I like that," Orlando grins. "But what I particularly like is that I'm the one bringing out their colour and shine." He thumbs over the slit in Elijah's cockhead to punctuate his point, and Elijah squirms against him, his eyes dropping shut. 

"I like that too," he whispers. 

Orlando pulls back, angling under the open spread of Elijah's ass and slides back in, pulling Elijah once more onto his groin.

"God," Elijah moans. "Do it again."

Orlando places his foot beside Elijah's on chair. "Tell me if this is too much." He lifts Elijah's leg over his thigh, hotly remembering Elijah's flexible joints, opening the spread of his groin even more, and scoops down to catch Elijah's balls.

"Oh!" Elijah cries out, a spasm pitching him forward, but Orlando's left arm is there, holding him tightly. 

The exposure of his genitals in this new angle makes his balls feel like they've grown tenfold, heavy as stone, and Elijah finds it hard to keep his ground under the onslaught of Orlando's merciless hands. His head falls foreward as he groans, feverishly rubbing the backs of Orlando's forearms. 

"What do you want?" Orlando whispers against his nape.

"Hard," Elijah bites out. "I need to feel you coming up my throat."

The force of Orlando's next thrust knocks a grunt past Elijah's lips, and for the next few minutes, they couple like this, Orlando's left hand driving Elijah back onto his cock, his right stroking and smearing up around Elijah's flushed and tightening genitals. 

"What do you want?" Orlando murmurs again when he feels the shake begin in Elijah's legs.

"You in the chair," Elijah pants, staring up at Orlando in the mirror. "I need to look at you." 

He is starved for all Orlando can give him, and it's more than cock and tongue and hands, he knows that, he knows what it is, and he knows that Orlando will give it, and give it gladly, vigorously, gratefully. It's enough to turn his head inside out, to fry every notion of what sex has become and what it should be and could be, what it is right at this very second. 

They both groan when Orlando pulls out, each missing the delicious heat and fullness of the other, and they move quickly to grab it back. Orlando moves the jar and retrieves the bathrobe from the floor, laying it across the chair seat so that they might not stain the fabric any more than they hope to stain themselves. He sits, and Elijah straddles him while he grips himself. 

"Oh," Elijah exhales as he sinks onto Orlando. He clings to his neck and tucks his heels into the space behind Orlando's back, then draws back. "Kiss me," he breathes. 

As far as Orlando is concerned, there is no doubting the sincerity of Elijah's ardor. Since the bathtub, he has watched Elijah slowly disintegrate under his touch, and there is nothing that leads him to believe it's not genuine and much needed. While what he wants from Elijah is so much more than he is ever likely to get, he will gladly take one authentic moment, one memorable day. He slides a hand up through Elijah's hair and closes it in his fist, pulling him down onto his mouth, carving out the interior with his tongue.

They rock slowly, and kiss hotly, and curse each time they break for air. 

Orlando reaches down to where Elijah's cock is painting murals against his stomach and closes his hand around it, twisting slowly.

"Oh fuck!" Elijah cries out sharply, panicky. "I'm going to come!"

"Not yet," Orlando whispers against his cheek, and he presses his thumb at the base of his cock.

Elijah shudders and yowls.

"Shhhhhh," Orlando chuckles into his ear. "They might not have heard at the end of the hall."

Elijah is panting, face now burrowing into Orlando's neck. "You prick," he sobs.

"Yellow tie payback," Orlando mouths, sucking an earlobe between his lips. 

He keeps the pressure on Elijah until the rigid twitching against his fingers ebbs, and instead focuses on the sensations surrounding his own cock. "Squeeze," he asks.

Elijah clenches as Orlando pulls back a little, then releases. 

"Oh that's nice," Orlando gasps, his face falling to Elijah's shoulder. "Do it again.......again.......again, oh god." Pretty soon, their mouths find each other, more frantic, more messily, and Orlando kneads Elijah's ass onto his cock, so that all he can really focus on is the delicious friction and depth and glide. 

But Elijah can't last, it's impossible. There are too many points of glorious contact for him to tamp down the explosion that's threatening. "If you stop me again, I may have to break your wrist," he gasps. 

Orlando can barely hear him; all his senses have turned inward and tuned out as his balls crawl up and his vision goes black, and he curls forward, wrapping his arms around Elijah's hips and thrusting...

...up...

Elijah pulls back a little, his scalp relaxing, his eyes losing their focus. "Orlando," he sighs, giving his orgasm a name, an owner. Everything inside ripples as he comes, and when he feels the tell-tale thump at the edges of his ass, he finds it sweet in an old-school sex manual sort of way that they have actually managed to come at the same time. 

*

"Hey," Elijah whispers drowsily, Orlando still within him. He's curled against his chest, spunk cooling between them, his legs withdrawn and hanging loosely over the edges of the chair. 

It would be blissful to fall asleep right here, he thinks; it's been a long time since he's felt that he belonged somewhere so completely.

"Let's go to bed," he says, kissing Orlando's temple. He starts to inch back, to disengage, and Orlando quickly and silently holds him still. He stays his movement, lets time unwind until Orlando begins to shrink and slip out of him.

"You good?" he asks gently, petting the hair from Orlando's face, searching his eyes.

"I'm excellent, mate," Orlando smiles in subsiding breaths. 

Elijah stands and helps Orlando up, who immediately starts to inch him back towards the bed. 

"Jesus," Elijah laughs.

"Be warned, dearheart," Orlando grins, wrapping his large hands around Elijah's waist and crowding him backwards. "Because I'm going to fuck you all night long."

"Grab the jar; you might just have to wait your turn," Elijah challenges, brows arching, and he can't believe he fucking shrieks when he's thrown on the bed.

*

They are true to each other's words. When they both lie tangled, exhausted and gasping and laughing, sleep takes them, only to find that a few hours pass before one reaches for the other, lips mapping buttocks, a back, and it begins all over again.

And later, again.

And later still, again.

By daybreak, they lie facing each other, fingers ghosting over each other's features, lids battling and failing, the bed linens reeking of their love-making. 

"We should shower," Elijah says.

"Absolutely," Orlando agrees, eyes closing. 

*

When he wakes up, the bed is empty.

Oh.

_Oh._

He sits up abruptly, scrubbing his face, and looks wildly about the room. The balcony drapes are wafting from the opened doorway.

Elijah is standing at the railing in his bathrobe, looking out over morning-damp lawns, shadows still long upon them as the sun struggles to reach over the rooftops. He turns when he hears Orlando behind him and takes in the blank expression.

"The place needed an airing," Elijah smiles. "I'm still here."

Orlando comes up and enfolds him from behind, inhaling every minute of the night's musky vices wafting from him. There's a poignancy to this new love, at least from how he's seeing things. But now that the night is gone, he wonders about the day, and days, to come.

"You had promised me romance," Elijah says.

"And maybe a little sodomy," Orlando adds.

"And you delivered on both fronts." 

They're quiet for a moment. ""We should go in," Elijah finally says, "before we scandalize the neighbours any more than we already have." 

Orlando makes a playfully dismissive sound. "This is England," he says. "'Queer' is enshrined in the Magna Carta." 

*

They are gone by noon, Orlando's car being brought round by a valet. Elijah stares at the receding lawns where they had floated to earth one day before, quiet in the bittersweetness of the moment.

"I thought I'd take you around to my flat, show you where I live," Orlando says after several miles of silence.

"That would be nice," Elijah smiles. 

But Orlando can hear it in the polite cadences; the caution is back. He looks out his side window, away from Elijah, lips pressing together, and quietly exhales. 

He tells himself to settle down: maybe this is just Elijah's manner, maybe he gets petulant when he's tired, maybe a hundred different things could be happening that he can't even imagine because he doesn't really yet know Elijah, not like he knows his ass and mouth. Everything is backwards here, everything is on the other side of the looking glass. First comes fucking, then comes knowing.

The car eats up more miles before Elijah says, "What now?"

"That's up to you. The ticket is wide open."

Elijah looks back out his window at the passing countryside. He's been regretting this conversation. "As much as I'd like to stay a little longer," he says quietly, "I'll have to leave today."

Orlando nods. He won't be asking why; there's nothing about what he might hear that he wants to know. And he expected the weekend would play out this way, had even booked appointments for the following morning. 

None of which are binding, however, should Elijah's decision have been different.

*

Orlando's flat is near the Royal Hospital, on a quiet street where many of the buildings rent out for the busy flower show season; some are more modernly appointed, with recent balconies, indoor garages and rooftop terraces rife with lush gardens. It is a tony neighbourhood, obviously favored by the well-heeled flat owner or tenant.

Orlando parks on the street, leaving Elijah's baggage in the boot, and they go inside.

From all appearances, it's a working man's apartment: spare, bright, wired with countless sound and video entertainments within a small living area, a well-packed bookcase partitioning a separate work station. A computer desk with several monitors overlooks the street, but it is the enormous drafting table beneath which baskets of rolled up plans and papers sit that dominates the far end of the room. The floors are uncarpeted, their footsteps hollow as they walk around. 

"Have a look about," Orlando offers casually, but he knows it's an act. He puts down his bag and walks over to a computer to check out the departure schedule as Elijah walks down the short hall.

The bedroom is another story. Soft, warm carpeting is ready for morning feet; a hand-held remote adjusts the vertical slats, presently opened; and rich grey brocades and velvets adorn a king-sized bed abutting a sleek and polished white oak headboard. 

Elijah regards it regretfully; he wonders if it's a bed he'll ever know. He goes back to the main room. 

"There's an early evening flight," Orlando tells him.

"Sounds good." Elijah comes up behind him and slips a conciliatory hand along his neck. He leans forward, his lips to Orlando's ear. "If I could stay, I would."

"I know." 

But he doesn't, not really. Maybe now that it's come to this, the notion of being able to share Elijah is a fool's errand after all. He'll see what tomorrow brings. And the day after that.

*

Traffic and distance mean there is little of the day left for anything more than finding a quick bite before making their way to the airport.

Without saying as much, they both feel like they've fallen off a cliff.

*

"If you'd prefer just to drop me at the curb," Elijah says.

"Don't be silly. I'll see you in."

The garage is busy with Sunday night traffic and Orlando's mood grows ever more sour as a result, but he wraps it tightly. They're far from the terminal by the time they park, which means they only have further to walk while they ponder their footsteps. Orlando's hand wraps back up to Elijah's shoulder, causing them both to reflect in their own ways on how thirty-six hours have changed their relationship, perhaps a little, perhaps more than that. Neither of them can really say.

They stand together at the express check-in while the ticket machine spits out its paperwork.

"So we're good?" Orlando smiles, exhaling while Elijah drapes his bag over the handle of his parked carry-on. 

"All set," Elijah replies, his eyes coming up to Orlando's. "Thank you for every moment of this weekend. I know you're disappointed that I'm leaving, I know you are. I only hope that it won't change you wanting to see me again." His smile is softly hopeful, softly sad.

Orlando isn't capable of lying about his doubts. For him, it's now a matter of increments: does he settle for a little heartbreak now or massive bitterness and disillusionment later? Loved and lost? Or not at all? 

"I'll call you," he says. Either way, he would do that.

They kiss, very gently, then hug, much more tightly, neither wanting to let it end. If there are words of feeling on their lips, they don't get said.

"Don't let it go long," Elijah says. 

"I won't."

*

By the time Orlando tucks his car into his garage for the night, he's decided to forego seeing his empty apartment with its hollow floors and the ghost of Elijah's recent presence without first having a pint, or several, at his local pub. Maybe he'll run into someone he knows, have a chat, perhaps a laugh. He could use the distraction. He exits onto the street and walks the few blocks to see who might be there on a Sunday evening.

It's quiet, but there are a few regulars and he spends some time with them, finding out what they've been up to, throwing a few darts, letting their cameraderie wash over him. By the time he calls it a night around 10 o'clock, he's put some distance on his weekend and is turning his thoughts towards the coming work week.

His street is quiet at this time of night and so he's lulled and introspective by the time he approaches his flat. He draws up short after he passes the bushes and fencing of the neighbouring apartment and turns into his walkway. 

"I couldn't," Elijah says from where he's sitting on the top step. He sounds broken and his eyes can't meet Orlando's.

Orlando slowly walks to the foot of the steps. He's holding his breath. 

"This might not ever happen for me again," Elijah says, more to himself it seems. It's such a pathetically self-absorbed statement, he's ashamed, but there it is.

There's nothing Orlando can think to say. Or rather, there are a thousand things he can think to say, only now is not the time.

"You have work to get to tomorrow, I know, and I have..." It's so profane for Elijah to say that he does as well, that he doesn't.

"Nothing I can't change," Orlando finally says. 

Elijah nods. Orlando makes it sound so easy. He sighs. "I owe you a ticket."

Orlando takes the last few steps and reaches to collect the garmet bag hanging over the railing. "You owe me nothing," he says. "Come on." He reaches out a hand to help Elijah to his feet. "Let's go in."


End file.
